Changeing the Rules of Engagement
by HarlequinRavenwing
Summary: ONE SHOT - Shepard loses her heart when a few whispered words of comfort lead to an intimate encounter with Thane Krios. Rated M for a passionate alien encounter. All characters property of Bioware.


CHANGEING THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

"_Laser dot trembles on his skull…One finger twitch he dies…Then the smell of spice on the spring wind. Sunset coloured eyes defiant in the scope. The laser dances away."_

Thane seemed lost to memory and stared blankly ahead for several minutes. Quietly, Shepard leaned over the desk and whispered his name.

"_Thane…?" _

She tentatively reached out her other hand, and brushed her fingertips against the drell's cheek.

At her touch his eyes flicked to meet hers and there was a moment of connection, an awareness of a mutual attraction that made her flush with guilt and drop inelegantly back into her chair.

Thane blinked quickly then looked away. "My apologies. Drell slip into memories so easily."

Shepard nervously cleared her throat and tried to still the butterflies beating in her chest. There was something about Thane that called to her, deep inside. Maybe it was his stillness, his acceptance or his spirituality…

…or maybe it was the way he was looking at her now and the way his lips had parted slightly, their plump green surfaces trembling and inviting.

"Look…I, er…" Jane Shepard could feel warmth rising in her cheeks as she stared into the fathomless eyes of the drell. "I should go."

Her voice was hoarse as she stepped out of the chair and began to move toward the door. She could feel his nearness as he too rose to his feet and followed her, but she didn't want to turn, she dare not. Closing her eyes against the tide of emotion that was threatening to overwhelm her, she reached the door and lifted a hand to operate the mechanism.

"Don't." Thane's voice was soft as he neared her. "Don't leave."

"Thane…" Her voice was barely above a whisper as she felt his breath stirring her hair. "If I stay now…I don't know if I can ever leave."

"I don't know that I ever want you too." She felt his fingers alight on her shoulder. "I have so little time siha…so little time…"

"Siha?" She breathed as he began to stroke the sensitive skin of her throat.

"Yes…you are indeed, siha." His body was against her back and he leaned against her, trapping her against the exit. "One of the warrior-angels of the goddess Arashu."

His hand reached around to touch her face.

"Fierce in wrath…"

Gently, he turned her toward him, his finely scaled fingers touching the soft flesh of her lips.

"A tenacious protector."

When she finally summoned the courage to meet his gaze, she was surprised to see tears glistening in his eyes.

"I would know you Shepard, my siha." He cupped her face in his hands and leaned toward her. "We have already shared so much…our minds, our hearts, our souls…there is but one thing we have yet to share."

"Which is…?" Her own hands rested lightly on his finely muscled chest and she could feel the steady beating of his heart.

"I think you know." His voice rumbled deeply as he softly pressed his lips to hers.

His kiss was slow, deliberately so and he explored her mouth with the tip of his pink tongue as his lips flicked over her own. His skin was cool, the thin scales creating an entirely new sensation as she leaned into him pushing her own tongue into his mouth and tasting the strangeness of his flavour.

"Thane…" She gasped, pausing to catch her breath. "I want you…I want you so much."

"Siha…"

She felt the zipper on her jumpsuit sliding down as Thane began to undress her and then he was kissing her once more, only now he was more insistent and there was passion growing between them that she could feel through the soft leather of his pants.

Feeling her own need increasing with each passing moment, Shepard tugged at the collar of his coat and pushed it down revealing Thane's broad green shoulders and well defined arms. She let her fingers trail over his skin, revelling in its cool dry texture and she moaned softly as she felt his own fingers sloughing off both the top part of her uniform and the bra beneath from her tense torso.

He stopped as he considered her full round breasts and regarded them curiously. He seemed to delight in the way her pink nipples stiffened in response to her arousal and he hesitantly placed his thumbs over each, flicking them softly and causing her to whimper with delight. A smile played across his lips as he pushed against them, fingers flexing as he teased and squeezed at the malleable flesh.

"Oh god, Thane." Shepard sighed as he pushed her against the door and felt her sex becoming moist with want of him.

"My siha…" He whispered, bending to place a delicate kiss on each of her sensitive tips before sucking gently at the hardness of her arousal. His mouth easily encompassed her sensitive areas and she began to moan as his tongue rolled lazy circles around her areola.

Shepard closed her eyes and surrendered to his attention as he brought his small even teeth into play, teasing out her nipples and nipping at the soft whiteness of her mounds. She hadn't even noticed that his deft fingers had begun to unbuckle her boots until he carefully lifted first one foot and then the other free of them.

Slowly he straightened in front of her and stepped back as he began to unzip the tight leather vest he wore. As he shrugged it to the floor, she admired his finely sculpted body. Darker bands of green cut a striped pattern across his broad chest and elongated bands of muscle ran across his flat abdomen. The strange red ridges that intersected his throat seemed to resume their journey just past his stomach and disappeared into the waistband of his pants.

Shepard gasped and began trembling with nervous excitement when he very deliberately began to unfasten those same pants and push them past his slender hips to pool in a heap of black at his feet.

When he again stood before her, she was almost terrified at the confidence and sheer sexual energy that radiated from the assassin. He smiled with his perfect mouth as she let her eyes wander over his frame, following the trail of red to the jutting maleness of his ready sex. The lines of ridged flesh parted about his groin and the stark contrast of colour made his very erect member stand out starkly against his green hips and thighs.

Thane took a step forward, his large liquid eyes fixed on her own cool greys and she felt an ache deep inside that caused the juice of her arousal to seep from her heat and dampen the cotton panties she wore.

He seemed to sniff at the air and she shuddered as she realised it was her smell he was scenting…the smell of her desire.

Inhaling deeply to calm herself, Shepard placed a hand on her own waistband and pushed the rest of her clothes to the ground. Her eyes never left his face as she stepped out of the heap and she was pleased to see his own eyes widening when he looked at the curling hair below. He looked at her as if in wonder and she smiled, pleased to at least be able to fascinate him and much as he fascinated her.

"Thane…" She murmured, moving close enough to touch him. "Is this what you want?"

Even as her lips found his, her hand brushed against the hardness of his cock and she was surprised by the wetness of his organ. She stroked it gently, feeling his secretions between her fingers as she began to slide her hand up and down his length and he rumbled deep in his chest.

"Siha, I could ask the same of you…" He placed his uniquely alien fingers in the hair covering her heat and slid them down toward her labia. He hesitated when he felt the beginning of her wetness, but then he pushed between her folds to find the engorged nub of her clitoris. "But your body tells me everything that your heart desires. I fear that my words would be inadequate to describe what I want…but I would show you, if you would accept me into your body and join with me."

She found his words strangely formal and cocked her head to one side. Thane simply smiled.

"I am not merely seeking a night of gratification for my own personal pleasure, siha." His lips caressed the skin beneath her ear as he spoke. "If I join with you tonight, I am giving you something much more than just my physical self. I am sharing that part of me that has remained alone for so long now and has been content to do so."

His lips brushed against hers and she could taste the bitterness of his tears.

"I thought I had accepted my fate, resigned myself to the embrace of the gods as it were but in you I find a reason to want to live…to want to…"

He choked off his words with a passionate kiss that took the breath from her body even as his fingers entered it. Shepard arched against him, pressing her heated flesh to his cool scaled surface and feeling herself opening below as he pushed into her, his knuckles brushing against her nub as he flexed and probed his way inside her.

She greedily devoured his tongue and felt her heart fit to break as she sensed not only his want, but also his powerful unconditional love and oh, how brightly it burned…so brightly that she could almost see it.

"Then your gods help us both, Thane Krios." She panted as she drew back her head. "Because I think I'm falling in love with you…"

The drell raised his free hand up to her face and she was surprised to feel tears of her own rolling down her cheeks. He gently wiped them away with his slender thumb and kissed her eyelids tenderly.

"Then my heart is glad, siha…for as certainly as the sea calls the faithful, so my heart calls to you. I love you, Shepard. "

She felt her knees go weak as he resumed his deeply stirring kisses and she whimpered as his fingers resumed their intimate work inside her heat. Her clitoris throbbed painfully as he teased it into a state of sensation that was almost too much to bear and she pushed against him as her own hands resumed stroking his moistened cock.

Her eyelashes fluttered open as he moved his lips to her throat and she was astounded to see him bathed in a nimbus of colour that threatened to blind her, so intense was its light!

"Thane…" She breathed as he once more sought her breast and the feel of his skilled fingers inside her aching vagina was both the cause and relief of her building ecstasy.

Then it was here, the pulsing contraction of orgasm building in intensity as the drell selflessly pleasured her, urging her to her peak. Her hands left his cock and gripped his shoulders as he continued to pump relentlessly inside her and she felt her will coming undone.

"Thane! Oh god…Thane! I'm…I'm…"

She cried aloud as her sex spasmed about his fingers bringing blessed relief from the pounding passionate madness that threatened to overwhelm her and she heard him sighing contentedly as her rich cream covered his digits in her easing fluid.

"Siha…" He marvelled as she sank to her knees, the strength momentarily gone from her limbs.

"A moment…" She whimpered softly, breathing in deeply as the aftershocks of climax dissipated.

Then there was a smell, a potent smell like musk and the sea. Shepard opened her eyes and found her gaze level with Thane's red, throbbing cock. For some reason, it seemed to glow with an inner light even as the air about it swirled in spirals of orange heat…or was it her head that was swirling.

She decided not to trust her eyes as her head felt strangely light and instead she leaned forward and inhaled deeply of his incredibly male aroma. She reached out with her tongue and curled it around the tip of his moist member. Her mouth filled with his taste and her lips tingled as she leaned forward and slid over his length. She was filled with his fluid and it seemed to stimulate the nerves of her lips, inside her mouth and the back of her throat. Experimentally, she sucked at his organ and she heard him moaning in pleasure as she drew back.

Again and again she slid forward over him, then pulled back drinking his redness and feeling the tingly fluid running down her chin. He reached down to run his fingers through her silky black hair and rocked against her as she devoured him, coaxing forth his excitement and needing to please him as much as he pleased her.

"Siha…stop…" He murmured, his hips ignoring his protests and his red swollen flesh began to throb. "Stop!"

She blinked as he pulled away from her and then he slid his hands underneath her arms, hauling her to her feet.

"I said I would join with you, siha." He reaffirmed, his dark eyes endless pools of deepening love. "If I am to spill my seed, let it be within you."

Strong arms encircled her and he clasped his hands to her plump buttocks as he lifted her from the floor. Swiftly, he carried her to the viewport overlooking the mass effect core and sat her atop the sill. She panted with anticipation as he pushed her knees apart and stepped between her thighs, his glistening red tip hovering at the circle of her entrance.

He looked down, lips parted and breathing heavily as he took in the openness of her sex and nudged against her testing the give of her ready hole. As he lifted his head, he fixed his eyes upon hers and spoke in hushed, but insistent tones.

"Do not look away siha, I want you to see me…to see within me…"

She wrapped her legs about his waist as he began to push, his slickened tip sliding into her easily and yet filling her so completely that she cried out.

"Oh god Thane!"

"No siha, do not close your eyes." His voice was hoarse as he tilted her head down and she found his gaze once more, her vision free of the strange coloured lights from earlier in their union. "That's it…feel me…"

Her sex closed about his member as she drew him deeper inside and she moaned as she writhed upon his seemingly endless shaft. The joint fluids of their joining ran between her cheeks as he filled her and she gasped as she finally felt his abdomen pressed against hers…his cock inside her as far as she could take him.

His lips twitched as his eyes roved over her face and body and through the haze of exquisite delight, she realised he was memorising every image, every feeling and every moment of their union.

"Thane, please…" She felt her sex aching once more with the need to take him. "Give yourself to me as I give myself to you."

She leaned back, feeling the cool glass-steel against her back and caressed his body as he began to slowly slide out of her.

"Shepard…my siha." With a force she wasn't expecting, he suddenly thrust back inside her and kissed her so hard that she felt the iron tang of blood in her mouth.

"Yes, my love…yes!" She cried out as he repeated the action and she felt her entire lower body quiver with the passion of it. His organ filled her so completely and the way his hips ground against hers was so much that she felt her body responding beyond anything she'd ever experienced.

Her orgasm built quickly and strongly and she dug her nails into the drell's muscled back as he impaled over and over. Thane grunted his need as he slammed a hand against the glass-steel by her head and she could see by his expression that his own climax was imminent.

Spots of light danced in her vision as she trembled with the pulsing beginnings of ecstasy and Thane moaned loudly as her inner walls clamped down around him…milking him…drawing forth the release that she knew he so desperately desired to empty into her.

"Siha!" He exclaimed loudly, watching her intently as she began to weep with the passion of it all. "Yes…I feel you…I feel you…"

"Thane!" She screamed as all thought dissolved into instinct and waves of pleasure crashed over her, robbing her of sense and rational thought. Her sex spasmed about his shaft and her clitoris felt electric as her creamy issue covered his cock in her climactic discharge.

She needed him to stop, needed him to wait as the aftershocks ripped through her swollen sex, but he was too near…too close. His hips increased their rhythmic pounding and she felt him growing even more inside her as he neared his own peak.

Suddenly he threw back his head and let out a desperate cry and she was filled with his hot, tingling seed. His face softened as his issue continued to pump into her and she cradled his head to her breast as he leaned against her, exhausted and satisfied beyond measure.

"So…?" Thane propped himself up on one elbow as he watched her getting dressed, the smell of sex and sweat still hanging in the dry air.

"So, I have to tell him." Shepard winced at the thought. She'd never wanted to hurt Garrus, but then again she'd never expected to fall in love with the drell assassin either.

"I could accompany you, siha?" The drell offered, moving to get up from the cot on which they'd been snoozing together, wrapped up in each other's limbs. "I knew full well that he had an interest in you when I confessed my love and I must share in the blame if we are to be honest with the turian about our relationship."

"You really don't know Garrus very well…" She muttered by way of reply then shook her head. "No, it's okay. I'll talk to him. The sooner the better I suppose…"

"He will be hurt." Thane looked concerned as he moved toward her, his body still a symphony of sculpted muscles and effortless grace. "The turian cares for you a great deal."

"And I for him…but I need to this beloved, I must." She placed a kiss on the pouting lips of the drell and then sighed. "I can't help the way I feel about you, but I can at least offer him the courtesy of the truth."

She yanked up the zipper and ran her fingers through her hair. "Will I see you later?"

Thane smiled and nodded. "Of course siha, later this evening and every day of my life from this moment onward."

Shepard embraced him tenderly before leaving him to his prayers. Whatever lay ahead of them both, her time with the drell was the most precious gift she had ever been given.


End file.
